Mass Effect 2 Stuttering, please help

[quanzaboy]

Hey Guys,

I just got ME2 for my PC and I'm having problems with it right off the bat, even though my computer shouldn't have any problems running it!

The game just keeps stuttering non-stop! At first I thought that maybe my PC wasn't as powerful as I thought it was, so I changed all the graphics settings to their lowest, and disabled all the fancy effects... the game looked like sh*t, but the stuttering didn't stop! Since this was the case I assumed this was probably a software issue. I updated to the latest drivers from nVidia, but that didn't seem to help either, so now I don't know what else to do!

Any Ideas? :\

System Specs:

Windows XP SP3
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (512 MB)
Gigabyte M57SLI-S4 Motherboard
2048MB DDR2 RAM

 

[quanzaboy]

Anyone at all?

 

[dustin_ds3000]

you might get more help here Mass Effect PC Technical Support

 

[EXCellR8]

make sure the graphics card isn't overheating. use RivaTuner to adjust fan speeds before gaming.

 

[quanzaboy]

you might get more help here Mass Effect PC Technical Support

Yeah, thanks for the advice! I already did that just before I read your post, so I'll see if I can get some help there...

make sure the graphics card isn't overheating. use RivaTuner to adjust fan speeds before gaming.

Thanks for the advice! I don't really have any experience with RivaTuner or adjusting fan speeds/determining if the graphics card is overheating. Can you tell me what temperature is considered overheating? And what fan speed should I set?

 

[EXCellR8]

I've never owned an 8800GT so I can't really say what the ideal temp range is but I'd say anything over 60-70c is a bit toasty. RivaTuner allows you to adjust the fan speed as a percentage (usually 25-100%) so that the cooling is more effective in games. The software is really easy to use and is available for free.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163

Try setting the fan to ~60% and run the game... if the game start's to act up, close it and look at your temps in RivaTuner.

 

[quanzaboy]

Ok, thanks for all the advice guys, but I manage to solve my problem after someone on BioWare's forums pointed me in the right direction!

Turns out it was a Sound Card drivers issue, and had nothing to do with the Graphics Card at all! Once I uninstalled my old sound card drivers (and also the motherboard chipset drivers just in case), and then did a clean install of the latest drivers from the Gigabyte website (my mobo's manufacturer), the game started to run perfectly!

The funny thing is that there's a "sticky' post about this issue on BioWare's forums, but it was talking specifically about Creative sound cards, so I didn't think that was the problem in my case since I'm using an onboard soundcard from Realtek. But after someone on the forums there suggested that it might be a sound card issue nonetheless, I tried it, and they were right!

So if anyone reading this in the future has the same problem, try uninstalling your sound card drivers (and also your mobo's chipset drivers just in case), and doing a clean install with the latest version of the drivers from your manufacturer!

Also here's a link to my post on the BioWare forums if anyone's interested:
social(dot)bioware(dot)com/forum/1/topic/106/index/1215434